Privacy: On the Endangered Information List

You always hear of people questioning their privacy online and wondering just how much information is out there about them. Well thanks to data mining, surveillance, and social networking I can almost bet you there is more information online about you than you even realize. We know that the government has the ability to tap into our activities if they see fit, well what about those creepers out there who want our information for the wrong reasons?

Think about all of the types of privacy that an individual has; informational, bodily, decisional, relational, communication, and locational. But really, we have no privacy because of the following technologies; GPS, data mining, surveillance, social networks, wire taps, and information feeds. This brings me to my point of privacy being on the endangered information list. Because of the increase in technology in our society, privacy is almost non-existent in every aspect. Informational privacy doesn’t exist because of data mining and companies pay other companies for my information. Bodily privacy doesn’t exist because of technology such as Google Earth anyone can see where I am at even physically, as well as with locational devices. Decisional, relational, and communication privacy has gone out the window with the social networking trend growing tremendously. People can now see what I say on Facebook, Twitter, and my blog and determine the relationships that I have with the individuals that I keep in contact with. Along with this they can also see the decisions that I make by what pictures I post, what I say, what my interests are, what I’m doing for the upcoming weekend, and the list could go on and on.

I feel like the following picture of the keyboard with a padlock on it describes the privacy well. My feelings are that if you want privacy I would suggest not being a part of social networks, don’t order items online, don’t fill out online forms, or to sum it up, don’t use the internet as much if not at all. It would be very difficult for one to use the internet now a days and not share information with companies or with others about ourselves. Therefore, privacy should be added to the endangered information list.